According to the most recent data, U.S. viewers aged 15 years and older spent on average almost ***** hours watching TV per day in 2023. Adults aged 65 and above spent the most time watching television at over **** hours, whilst 15 to 19-year-olds watched TV for less than *** hours each day. The dynamic TV landscape The way people consume video entertainment platforms has significantly changed in the past decade, with a forecast suggesting that the time spent watching traditional TV in the U.S. will probably decline in the years ahead, while digital video will gain in popularity. Younger age groups in particular tend to cut the cord and subscribe to video streaming services, such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video. TV advertising in a transition period Similarly, the TV advertising market made a development away from traditional linear TV towards online media. While the ad spending on traditional TV in the U.S. generally increased until the end of the 2010s, this value is projected to decline to below ** billion U.S. dollars in the next few years. By contrast, investments in connected TV advertising are expected to steadily grow, despite the amount being just over half of the traditional TV ad spend by 2025.

Estimates suggest that in 2026 U.S. adults will spend around ** percent of their time watching traditional TV each day. This figure has generally fallen in recent years and the downward trend is forecast to continue in the years to come. Screen time Although average daily time spent watching TV appears to be decreasing, this does not necessarily mean that people are spending less time in front of screens; this drop is likely due to an increasing amount of time spent with phones, tablets, and laptops. With on-demand streaming services such as Netflix gaining massive popularity, people can watch a huge range of programming whilst on the go, meaning that screen time is no longer limited to time spent at home in front of the TV. Young people around the world have been especially quick to adopt smartphone-based video streaming habits meaning that television screen time will likely fall even further in the future. Television in the U.S. As mentioned above, the way people are consuming their video entertainment content is rapidly changing in the United States. By 2028, estimates suggest that only **** million U.S. households will pay for traditional TV services, down from over ** million as of 2019. In order to compete for people’s business, cable and satellite providers must find a way to adapt in a way the meets the needs of today’s increasingly mobile consumers. Some are launching their own streaming services in a bid to tackle cord-cutting, most notably Comcast.

In 2023, the average time spent per individual watching broadcast television in the UK amounted to 158 minutes per day. Despite an initial short spike in viewing time in 2020, likely due to the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic, broadcast TV consumption declined each year since 2010. Older audiences tended to consume traditional TV more than their younger counterparts, with people aged 65 years and over watching TV more than five hours on a daily basis, compared to less than an hour among 16 to-24-year-olds. Internet-connected devices transform the TV market The television continues to be crucial to the UK’s media landscape, regardless of declining TV viewing time. The most recent data showed that the number of TV households in the region increased from 26.7 million in 2017 to more than 27 million in 2021, as smart TVs and connected TVs become the devices of choice. In 2022, the penetration rate of smart TV sets peaked in 2021 and 2022 at 67 percent. Alteration of consumer habits While traditional TV consumption has declined lately, online TV services provided by broadcasters have increased in popularity. The average daily viewing time of broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) in the UK doubled between 2018 and 2022. Additionally, online audiovisual revenues grew by nearly four billion British pounds during the same period, demonstrating the recent shift from linear TV towards online video alternatives.

During the past decade, the time spent watching TV in Sweden generally decreased, despite a small growth of two minutes from 2019 to 2020, probably due to the pandemic with people staying at home. However, since then the average daily TV time fell again to 98 minutes in 2024. According to the source, people aged 60 years and older watched live TV the most, at 220 minutes per day that year. For comparison, 15 to 24-year-olds' daily viewing time amounted to only 14 minutes.

According to estimates, there were 125 million TV homes in the United States for the 2023-2024 TV season. Whilst the number of TV households continues to grow, pay TV is becoming less popular – the pay TV penetration rate in the U.S. was pegged at 64 percent in 2023, marking a drop of over 10 percentage points in just five years. The changing TV landscape The trend of consumers (especially younger generations) cutting the cord and instead moving online to streaming services has meant that many pay TV providers have struggled to keep afloat. In spite of this, television statistics show that watching terrestrial TV is still a popular media activity among U.S. consumers. Television has been a popular pastime for so long that it seems impossible the medium could ever die out – but its traditional form is certainly changing. The advent of 3D and smart TV technology, as well as connected TV devices, mean that the ways in which we watch television are changing all the time. User demographics A key factor when considering television consumption in the United States is how a consumer’s age affects their viewing habits and preferences. As of 2022, the average daily time spent watching TV among adults aged 75 years and older amounted to nearly five hours. 20 to 24-year-olds spent just around two hours per day consuming TV content. Moreover, the share of cable TV subscribers was higher among older adults, with half of consumers aged 65 years and older subscribing to a cable TV service, compared to 34 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds at the beginning of 2023.

In 2023, the share of the Norwegian population watching television daily amounted to 47 percent. In the last decade, consuming TV in the country generally declined. By contrast, the share of TV users amounted to 82 percent in 2010.

The average weekly time spent watching television in Canada from September 2023 to May 2024 was around 19 hours a week among adults aged 18 or above. Those between the age of 25 and 54 watched 10.2 hours per week. Meanwhile, teens watched just seven hours each week. Traditional vs. digital media consumption in Canada According to the most recent data, Canadians spent over 10 hours a day with major media in 2021. Taking a deeper look at the specific media split, on average, adults in the country spent 288 minutes with traditional media, and the largest portion of time – 326 minutes – consuming digital media of all sorts that year. Online video users in Canada In 2021 it was measured that 27 percent of the Canadian population watched TV online. The ability to watch time-shifted TV, as opposed to live viewing, has brought about services such as subscription video-on-demand. It is believed that in 2021 there were 18.6 million people subscribing to Netflix in Canada. The popularity and accessibility of programming on such platforms also introduced the notion of binge viewing, defined as watching at least three episodes of a TV show in one sitting.

In 2024, private station TV4 maintained its position as the leading television channel in Sweden, with an audience share of 27.4 percent. Following closely was the public television channel SVT1, which recorded an audience share of 23.7 percent, reflecting a slight decline from the previous year. Compared to the previous year, the market share of SVT1 slightly decreased. SVT1 and TV4 The channel SVT1 belongs to Sveriges Television AB. The public broadcasting service operates the TV channels SVT1, SVT2, SVT24, as well as a children’s channel and a science channel. Additionally, it is possible to watch TV online via SVT Play. TV4, on the other hand, is operated by TV4 Media AB (formerly Bonnier Broadcasting), one of the largest television companies in the Nordic countries. Contrary to SVT1, that is funded by an annual license fee which is in turn charged through taxes, the private channel finances itself through advertising. Traditional vs. online TV As of 2024, the overall television viewing time in Sweden amounted to 98 minutes per day. This was a decrease of six minutes compared to the previous year. In the last decade TV viewing time generally declined. In contrast to that, watching television online gains more and more popularity. While 21 percent of Swedes used this medium in 2011, the share already amounted to 65 percent as of 2023.

Television became slightly more popular in the Netherlands in 2024, as survey results suggest that the share of people who watched TV every day increased to 76 percent. Overall, however, the trend was a downwards one. A decade earlier, over 90 percent of Dutch consumers watched television on a daily basis.

People in Japan on average spent 135 minutes per weekday on watching real-time television in fiscal year 2023. The viewing time slightly decreased compared to the previous year.

The average time people in their sixties in Japan spent on watching real-time television per weekday stood at 257 minutes in fiscal year 2023. The viewing time among younger age groups was considerably lower.

Ratio: The number of students among all student survey respondents who watch television for more than 3 hours per day on an average school day.

Definition: The percentage of students who watch television or play video/computer games and use the internet for a specified number of hours per day on an average school day.

Data Sources:

1) New Jersey Student Health Survey, Office of Student Support Services, Division of Student Services and Career Readiness, New Jersey Department of Education

2) High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, http://nccd.cdc.gov/youthonline/

History: MAR 2017: Chart and table titles corrected to read as "More Than 3 Hours Per Day." They were erroneously labeled previously as "2 or Less Hours Per Day."

While television ownership was almost total in 2010 among French households, this figure declined steadily over the following decade. In 2023, 92.1 percent of French households had a television at home. Here to stay While ownership of a television set is slightly down, the French population keep watching television regardless of age. Connected television sets have also found their place in French households, adapting to new consumer demands and new ways of consuming video content at home. Smart TVs are cross-media devices connected to the Internet that provide access to streaming on-demand or over-the-top content (OTT) but can also be linked to external devices such as game consoles. A new way of consuming audio content These new tools have led to the rise of catch-up television, which makes it possible to watch television programs after they have been broadcast. French viewers have been able to take advantage of the adaptability and comfort offered by catch-up television, which has become an essential part of many consumers' entertainment habits. The volume of catch-up content, which increased sharply as a result until 2017, has nevertheless fell significantly in more recent years.

In the third quarter of 2024, Indonesian internet users spent two hours and 50 minutes per day on average watching television and content delivered via broadcast and streaming services. In the same year, internet users in Indonesia listened to music via streaming services for one hour and 31 minutes daily.

Television was Spain’s second best-established telecommunication medium, according to the latest statistics on media penetration in Spain. This data revealed that 81 percent of the Spanish population watched television in 2024. This medium is almost equally popular among both genders, although women tend to consume it more often than men. Out-of-home media, featured a penetration rate of roughly 81 percent as well, holding the third position on the list. Internet surpassed all other media, placing first that year. The increasing numbers of media consumption  The average Spanish consumer has been increasing their daily time using media in the last decades, clocking up almost nine hours a day in 2021, up from about six hours in 1997. During those hours, Spaniards mostly watch TV and surf the internet, with both activities combined summing up to around seven hours a day. The two key differences between 2019 and 1997 that contributed to the amount of time spent on media might be related to the rise of the World Wide Web and, in particular in recent years, streaming services and social media. Television in Spain: viewers decline but investment maintains stable  Television might be the most consumed media in Spain, but its popularity has been in decline over the last decades. Spanish TV registered a penetration rate of over 90 percent in 2003, and it only decreased thereafter until reaching 82 percent in 2023. This fall in popularity does not reflect on the expenditure on television advertising, which is set to remain fairly stable, at around two billion euros in the coming years, after having recovered form the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

The graph shows weekly time spent with traditional TV in the United States in the first quarter of 2011 and the third quarter of 2018. Time spent watching traditional TV by 18-34-year-olds was estimated at 777 minutes (equivalent to 12 hours and 57 minutes) per week in the third quarter of 2018.

The statistic shows the average weekly time spent watching live TV among 18-to-24 year-olds in the United States from second quarter of 2014 to second quarter of 2017, as well as a forecast for the second quarter of 2018. In the second quarter of 2017, consumers aged 18 to 24 years spent an average of 11.4 hours per week watching live television in the United States.

Thanks to the rise of international and regional streaming platforms such as Netflix or Amazon Prime, TV shows are a new video format on the rise among French viewers, particularly online. As of 2023, male viewers had increased their TV show consumption with a total of 46 percent in France, up from 44 percent the year prior.

In Norway, 67 to 79-year-olds recorded the highest average daily spent on watching television, at 160 minutes in 2019. By contrast, nine to 15-year-olds spent only roughly 45 minutes on TV viewing per day.

In 2023, full-time employed consumers spent an average of 2.02 hours watching TV each day, down slightly from the previous year. Unsurprisingly, unemployed viewers spent more time with television on a daily basis than full or part-time workers.